Tsukasa-san's Teahouse
by HayashiOkami
Summary: When the denizens of Kyōtō have a problem that cannot be solved by normal means, they visit a small store near a quiet shrine on the Kamo River. Shūichi handles their ghoul customers while Tsukasa deals with the rest, which range from simple humans to the inhabitants of the 'other world'. SYOC
1. The First Story: Surplus Killing

**_Title:_** _Tsukasa-san's Teahouse_

 ** _Genre:_** _Supernatural/Drama_

 ** _Rating:_** _T (warnings: OC cast, violence, minor mention of sexual situations, very light slash (M/M))_

 _ **Summary:** When the denizens of Kyōtō have a problem that cannot be solved by normal means, they visit a small store near a quiet shrine on the Kamo River. Shūichi handles their ghoul customers while Tsukasa deals with the rest, which range from simple humans to the inhabitants of the 'other world'. SYOC_

 ** _Notes:_** _Think of this as a crossover with Japanese mythology? idk it was fun to write. So! This is a story where you can submit your own characters! Given the episodic nature of this story, I am seeking interesting characters who come to the teahouse seeking their wayward services. The form and additional information are on my profile. Please PM me with the form when you are done filling it out!_

 _Also, this first chapter is **supposed** to mirror the first episode/chapters of the manga. Binge eating is a bit different from surplus killing, though._

* * *

 **The First Story: Surplus Killing**

 _Two ghouls come to the store asking for Shūichi to stop one of their own: a surplus hunter who kills dozens of humans within the span of a week and lays dormant for months, only to resurface and kill again. Shūichi has no choice but to accept the job for his own safety._

* * *

Many mysterious beings, more than one can count in a single lifetime, exist in this world. The creatures that sustain their lives upon human flesh, those beings called ghouls, are one of the many existences that lurk beneath the placid surface of a city like Kyōtō.

Shūichi is one such creature to whom the scent of grilled eel smells like moist garbage. He can still smell it even though every window in the house is open to the oppressively humid summer night. A breeze slips into the room, but it carries a cloud of moisture with it.

Ghouls are not the only beings that coexist, at times successfully and at times not, with humanity. The perfect example of such is splayed out on the bamboo floors of the room Shūichi crawled into to escape the scent of dinner cooking in the kitchen.

He turns his head with excruciating slowness, feeling as though he will melt if he moves at all. Blinking lazily, he watches as the young human man across the table polishes a Japanese sword. The metal shines under the artificial yellow lights above their heads, the wave pattern on the blade flickering as if to say 'hello'.

On the floor next to the table is another young man, but the slightly tangy, cold scent that comes from his skin tells Shūichi that he is not human. His hair is dark and long like the style that men from long ago wore - his clothes are a casual _yukata_ in the summer and men's _kimono_ in the winter - but he looks perfectly human.

Unlike Shūichi, whose eyes morph into bloodshot red and black when he is hungry, who can pull an extra appendage out of his lower back.

The one on the floor squirms and laughs or otherwise releases a high-pitched squeak every time the only human in the room wipes the sword with a clean cloth.

Tsukasa calls him a _tsukumogami_. The spirit of an inanimate object that has gained sentience after living for over a hundred years. Shūichi would never have believed him if he had not seen the spirit emerge from that sword himself.

"How do you have enough energy to roll around like that in this heat? Cut it out; I'm getting hot just looking at you," Shūichi grumbles as he slides across the cool bamboo mats. He prefers to escape to the relative safety of the bedrooms upstairs when everyone eats dinner, but for now the smell is still bearable.

"I thought ghouls were supposed to have good endurance," Yūgiri says. The spirit of the sword has a sharp voice that slices through the air like his name implies, but Shūichi is used to hearing the harsh sounds against his ears by now.

"We aren't immune to the heat or cold."

"Swords aren't either."

"Then why-"

"Now, now, calm down you two. It's too warm tonight to start arguing," Tsukasa says placatingly. As usual, he sounds completely airy and insubstantial, as if he is floating on a cloud. Shūichi has never once seen him take any drugs, not even cigarettes, though. He doesn't even drink except during a festival if he has no choice.

Shūichi and Yūgiri turn towards the smiling human with twin glares as sharp as their respective blades. Tsukasa pretends not to notice and runs the cloth over the sword for a final time before capping the bottle of clove oil and sliding Yūgiri back into his _saya_.

He hands the weapon to its rightful owner reverently, taking a moment to smooth out the faded golden tassels that dangle from the hilt.

"Even a sword will wither and die without proper care," Tsukasa hums as he cleans his slender hands in a nearby basin of water. "The same goes for any living thing."

Tsukasa often wears the same type of _yukata_ as Yūgiri, but his light brown hair is not nearly as long. He dyes the strands auburn red every now and again. It makes both of them look not of this era - unlike Shūichi who dresses in jeans or slacks and a t-shirt, long-sleeved shirt, or a sweater depending on the weather.

Yūgiri moves out of the room with deliberate slowness to replace his main body in the storage room where they keep everything of value that customers are not welcomed to see.

"Dinner will be ready soon. Do you mind tending to the storefront?" Tsukasa asks with an incline of his head. A spark of mischief glints in his eyes, but he likes to maintain this mysterious front at the oddest times, so he won't just come out and tell Shūichi how he knows this information directly.

Shūichi stands with a groan, stumbling to his feet and walking towards the halfway opened door.

"Don't really got a choice, huuh? Shūichi drawls. Tsukasa waves at him as he leaves, turning into the dim hallway.

All manner of creatures visit the tiny teahouse at all hours of the day and night, but one of the other house guests, Kurō, usually minds the shop simply because he is the one who minds the legwork the least. When Shūichi is 'tending to the storefront', he is primarily there for a different reason.

They seem to have customers coming very soon. The other sort of customers - the ones with much more troublesome requests than ' _dango_ and green tea, please'.

Tsukasa only sends Shūichi out when he thinks that those customers would probably like nothing more than to eat both him and his regular customers. Shūichi is a ghoul, though, so unfortunately he knows how to talk to them the best.

The teahouse is so small that it only has three tables. There is room for one more, but everyone else who lives here vehemently opposed Shūichi when he suggested they order another table and chairs.

Four is an inauspicious number, after all. Kurō and his older brother Hakuō won't even leave the grounds of the teahouse on 'inauspicious' days.

Although he can never truly enjoy mingling with the customers like the others do, Shūichi plasters his best smile on his face right before he walks into the store.

"Shūichi! You came to join me?" Kurō exclaims, turning around so suddenly that everyone around them takes a sharp breath, expecting the tea cups on his tray to go flying into the wall. However, amazingly enough, not a single drop is spilled.

"Nah, dinner is ready, but I already ate," Shūichi lies. "So I'll take over for now. Don't take forever eating, though!"

"Yes, sir!" Kurō grins because while they physically look to be about the same age, both of them know that Kurō is a thing that is far, far older than Shūichi will ever be.

Kurō's long, pitch black hair disappears into the backroom just as some of the women at the table closest to the counter giggle behind their hands.

"All of the workers here are easy on the eyes," the oldest one chimes. They are all in their thirties and dressed in business attire despite the heat. Shūichi has a feeling they only come by so often - twice or three times a week - to coo over the people who work here.

"Shūichi-kun, why don't you grow your hair out like the others?" says one with a barely concealed smile and lips that glisten artificial pink.

Shūichi scowls and crosses his arms. "I wouldn't look like a man anymore if I did that!"

Everyone in the teahouse laughs at his expense.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, two customers arrive. A man and a woman, a seemingly normal couple wrapped in matching coats and scarves. How cute, Shūichi muses to himself as he welcomes them inside.

They aren't regulars and, upon closer inspection, he can smell the faint scent of his own kind. Most of it is concealed by cheap perfume and cologne, but it is unmistakably a ghoul's scent.

The woman, plain and unremarkable in looks, approaches him first with a hasty bow.

"Are you Fujimori-san who owns this teahouse? We heard about it from a friend...that…" She bows her head and looks at him hopefully. Neither she nor her companion must have good noses or else they would realize that Shūichi is a ghoul as well.

He forces a smile and motions for them to step into the backroom. "No, no, I'm just an employee here. You may call me Shūichi. Please step inside; I'll answer any questions you have to the best of my ability."

Tsukasa could, technically, take care of their ghoul customers' requests. It is no more or less dangerous than the other types of creatures that visit their humble teahouse, but Shūichi had insisted on being in charge with the weak excuse that 'only a ghoul can understand another ghoul'.

He offers the couple coffee, which they accept with twin smiles of vague worry.

"I apologize for the taste," he says. "We are a teahouse after all."

"No, no, it's perfectly okay," says the woman as she takes an obligatory sip. "So, about this store…and the owner...we heard that you will listen to any request? No matter how strange?"

Shūichi nods patiently. "That is true. We will try to fulfill any request you have, if it's within the realm of possibility."

He's glad that Tsukasa and Hakuō taught him polite language. The customers seem much more relaxed when they hear him speak like this, as if it makes him more trustworthy or something. As if he's an educated ghoul who knows what he's talking about.

"And you won't tell anyone about who your customers are?"

Shūichi smiles and goes over to the window in the small room, which only contains a low table surrounded by thin cushions as furniture. Tsukasa is fond of traditional styled rooms, after all.

He closes the window, cutting off the weak glow of moonlight from outside. When he turns around, his red and black kakugan are showing - he isn't hungry or anything, but this method is more reliable than any words he could offer the couple.

"Unfortunately, the owner is busy having dinner. I would be more than happy to listen to your request in his stead."

The man and woman nod simultaneously, concealing their startled expressions behind masks of composure.

"You must know about the...troublemaker that the Doves have been hunting for these past few months, right? He operates in the residential districts, preferring to ambush people on their way home from work or children playing in the park unsupervised," the woman provides, speaking quickly as if she does not trust that window to stay shut for long.

The teahouse is quiet in the sense that it is safe from prying ears most of the time, though, and the twins Hakuō and Kurō will alert Shūichi the second they hear someone out of the ordinary arrive. So he calmly sits across from the two other ghouls and listens to what they have to say.

"He kills dozens of humans within a week or two, but hardly eats them, and then he disappears for months on end. But, well, what the Doves aren't aware of is that the recent ghoul killings are his doing, too. He is very protective of his caches," says the man.

Shūichi's eyes widen considerably. He has heard of the incidents from some old friends of his who haunt downtown Kyōtō, but it isn't unusual for territorial disputes to break out between ghouls.

"And how do you know all of this?" Shūichi asks, because his friends never told him this information - that the killers are one in the same. He wonders if they have intentionally left something out or if they really don't know.

"He, well...he's in our 'group' I guess you can say," the woman says haltingly. She closes her eyes briefly. "He isn't the most confrontational ghoul you'll ever meet. But he's avoided us for the past year or so and only started acting this way during that time. It's fine to horde a bit, but the Doves are getting really persistent. And the other ghouls he's been attacking are starting to remember that he was once one of us. So…"

Shūichi is careful to wear a neutral expression and speak with an emotionless, but vaguely positive voice.

"In order words, your request is for a 'ghoul extermination'?" Shūichi inquires.

The woman and man look at each other, their faces clearly lined with stress, but he wonders how much of it is real and how much is the mask all ghouls learn to cultivate from an early age. Shūichi wonders.

"If there is another way, but...yes," the woman says, bowing until her head nearly touches the table. "This is really troubling us. So, please…!"

Shūichi would have just accepted it a few months ago, no questions asked, but he's had more time to observe how Tsukasa runs this business and so he does not say 'yes' immediately.

He says, "Is this something you absolutely cannot do yourself?"

The woman's eyes widen, flashing red.

"No," the man says firmly. His voice is deep and grating like gravel underfoot. "We can't. Otherwise…"

"We should tell him," the woman says in a low whisper. She knows that Shūichi can hear it, though a human might not. It's just another reason why Shūichi can't allow Tsukasa to handle these cases. "He needs to know if he's going to do this for us."

After a moment of silence, the man nods. "He has an older sister who is part of our circle as well. Even if we try to stop him, she will probably…"

Shūichi wants to sigh and shake his head. Ghoul politics are just as convoluted as human ones, at times. He nods his head though, figuring that this is doable.

"I understand. We will try our very best to complete your request. Is there anything I should know about this guy?"

And that besides, nothing good will come of the Doves' activity increasing. Since that terrible incident six months ago there has been relative peace in their city, but sooner or later everything will return to normal.

"His type is ukaku and like most of those guys, his stamina is bad. But he's very fast."

"And he doesn't wander around much during the day," the man adds.

It's ghouls like this guy who give the rest a bad name. He knows that Tsukasa will gladly accept the job, no matter how dangerous it might be. So he finishes collecting the details that the customers can provide, works out a payment plan, and returns to the storefront before their human customers run off without paying.

* * *

As it turns out, Tsukasa does not gladly accept the fact that he has already accepted such a dangerous job. The human man's frown of displeasure is painfully disappointed and Shūichi makes up for his urge to shrink away by grumbling excuse after excuse.

"You know that I already have my hands full trying to please those old gods warring over who gets the honor of hosting the Jidai Festival this year. I don't have time for this!"

Tsukasa will never admit it, but he tends to be more concerned over their otherworldly customers than the humans and ghouls who live in this city. Shūichi watches as Tsukasa tries to work a comb through Yūgiri's dark, long hair after the _tsukumogami_ has taken a shower. As Tsukasa's voice rises, so does Yūgiri's yelps of pain.

Shūichi tries his best not to let his voice rise, too. He's a ghoul, he reminds himself. He's supposed to be superior to the petty human beings they are forced to share the world with - his mother and father told him this long ago.

"The Jidai Festival isn't until October! And it's the only thing you've been doing these past few weeks!"

Tsukasa knows that Shūichi can slice a human open in the span of two seconds, but he doesn't back down as they argue over cups of untouched tea and coffee. Well, Yūgiri will sooner let himself shatter into pieces and be melted into scrap metal before he allows anyone to harm Tsukasa. Shūichi has no idea how his kagune will match up against the _tsukumogami_ of a sword forged by the gods.

"I've been working out these negotiations since before the last festival even started! Ayakashi have a terrible sense of time, but they're awfully demanding when they want something done. I can't very well put it on hold for however long it will take to fulfill this request."

Tsukasa's clear hazel eyes, odd for someone of purely Japanese heritage, are narrowed. But they do not burn with anger - they seethe with the cold harshness of a winter night.

"I can't do anything about it now," Shūichi grumbles, sitting back and staring at the coffee on the table. It's cold by now, but he reaches over to drink it anyways. "I promised them. Besides, it affects us too, you know."

Tsukasa sighs and turns his attention back to Yūgiri's head, apologizing to the _tsukumogami_ with a soft smile. Yūgiri glares at Tsukasa, thankfully realizing that this is hardly Shūichi's fault, but lets the human finish combing his hair.

"You're right; there's nothing we can do now. But are you sure it's not something we can leave to the CCG? I pay taxes for a reason, you know," Tsukasa says, much more reasonable this time. "There are plenty of problems they can never even dream of solving but if it's a matter related to ghouls, they should be able to handle it. I'm sure if they need help they will eventually call upon my family. We don't need to take care of it, right?"

Tsukasa's tone is light, but Shūichi winces as the slight dip in his voice when he mentions his family. The Fujimori family is an old family of _onmyōji_ and Tsukasa is the youngest son who avoids their calls whenever he sees their number pop up on the phone.

Shūichi growls low in his throat. "You are human, aren't you? I doubt it sometimes...you should be more scared! This guy kills humans! Indiscriminately! It's exactly the same thing your predecessor promised me not to do!"

Tsukasa's expression darkens and his eyes close slowly, giving the impression of someone calm. He knows that a throbbing pain is coiling below the surface of his skin, deep within his chest, because Shūichi feels the same thing.

"I know, Shūichi," Tsukasa says quietly, lips barely moving. He gets up and moves around the table to sit across from Shūichi so close that their knees almost touch. He holds out a hand, the left one, because Tsukasa is different from the average human in more than one way.

Tsukasa's dry lips curve upwards, but the motion has no feeling behind it.

Shūichi lifts his right hand and allows Tsukasa to hold it. He does nothing further, just stares at their hands as if comparing the size. Shūichi is a bit bigger than Tsukasa, who is not short but rather thin.

"If I let you handle it yourself, will you come back in one piece?"

"Of course," Shūichi says seriously. He doesn't like the hollow look on Tsukasa's face - it's completely out of place on a human like him. "I can take Yūgiri with me if it'll make you feel better? I know the other two have to go with you to talk to those mountain gods, but you don't need Yūgiri."

Yūgiri crawls over, the long strands of his hair dragging on the floor as he does so. It's not that he doesn't know how to bathe himself or tie his own hair, but he likes being coddled. Shūichi has long since stopped complaining or teasing him about it.

 _Tsukumogami_ can injure ghouls, after all. And Yūgiri has had - what, three hundred years? - to practice his swing.

"Hey, aren't you even going to ask me if I want to do this? I don't, by the way!"

"Now, now, Shūichi is being perfectly reasonable, Yūgiri. All you would end up doing is sitting prettily at my hip if you accompany me. But you can fight ghouls."

Yūgiri frowns and makes and face of brief disgust. It isn't directed towards Shūichi, but he feels an unwelcomed twinge of pain in his chest anyways.

"I can doesn't mean I want to. Besides that, I'm only at half my strength when I'm on my own. A sword only truly shines in the hands of a human being, you know?" Yūgiri says desperately, but Tsukasa's mind is already made up. Shūichi knows he should be happier. Tsukasa is going to let him handle this one alone. Well, with Yūgiri's help, but stil.

But he only smiles because Tsukasa is smiling as well.

* * *

"So, so, where are we looking for this guy? Maeda, you said his name is?" Yūgiri drawls. He looks up at the treetops as if trying to search for the sky through the leaves. "Why the forest?"

Shūichi is too hot to speak, but he knows that Yūgiri can talk endlessly and annoy him for the rest of this trip if he doesn't comply and tell the _tsukumogami_ what he knows.

"We're looking for his food caches. The customers from last night said that he's become a recluse lately and they haven't even seen him in ages. But he attacks anyone who messes with his food."

Yūgiri whistles, but it is the chilling sound of a blade cutting through air and parting a stalk of bamboo in a dead silent forest. Shūichi cannot stop the shiver that runs down his spine. He inadvertently eyes the sword strapped to Yūgiri's side. The black and gold _saya_ sways innocently as he walks.

"Your kind is so obsessed with food," Yūgiri muses, not noticing how Shūichi flinches. The young looking man blinks against the shadows that fall across their faces. His eyes today are an odd, clear grey. "I don't understand the appeal of it."

"You don't need to eat at all," Shūichi points out. "Of course you wouldn't understand."

Yūgiri stares at him for a few long seconds, but ends up shrugging.

"Do you bury your food like a fox? How am I supposed to look for it if I don't-"

"The smell," Shūichi interjects, refusing to turn around just to see those cold grey eyes staring at him again. "Don't ask me what human flesh smells like to you, but it's been so humid lately that the scent will be strong. And I don't know where he keeps it. We're like humans, you know? It's better to keep it in the refrigerator or something, but he's not exactly sane at the moment."

"The scent of human flesh?" Yūgiri says with vague curiosity. "Okay...well that should just smell like regular old rotting meat, right?"

"Don't ask me," Shūichi mumbles, sniffing the air. The _tsukumogami_ doesn't have the sharpest nose for these sorts of things, but it's better than Tsukasa's at any rate.

They wander the woods for over an hour, during which Yūgiri trips and falls into a shallow stream of dirty rainwater with a screech and Shūichi almost walks into a tree because he is too busy looking around. But eventually he catches a whiff of that scent - it is slightly less appetizing than a fresh kill, but it is the smell of food that makes him salivate and head in the right direction.

Yūgiri doesn't actually pick up on the same scent until the scent has long since invaded Shūichi's senses. The dark haired _tsukumogami_ wears a face twisted into disgust as they get closer to the cache. When they are only a little bit away, Yūgiri has already lifted the edge of his _yukata_ to his nose and mouth, pressing it to his skin harshly.

"Does it really smell so bad?"

Yūgiri nods vigorously, glancing desperately over his shoulder. "When can we leave? This is so gross…"

"What does it smell like?"

"Sweet…"

Shūichi doesn't understand how a sweet smell can be bad since he's seen Yūgiri nibble on chocolate and red bean paste filled _mochi_ before, but he never gets the chance to ask. He doesn't know whether he heard, felt, or smelled the ghoul first, but he only has enough time to shove Yūgiri so hard that the young man goes flying into a tree a few meters away. Shūichi takes the brunt of the other ghoul's attack on the right shoulder, the shards of the ukaku kagune embedding themselves in his skin as easily as Tsukasa can cut himself while chopping vegetables.

"He's here!" Shūichi gasps. The ghoul in question has wide, wild kakugan burning brightly and an ukaku kagune that fans out like the gangly branches of a tree.

"I can see that!"

Shūichi wants to curse, but the pain in his shoulder flares as he leaps away from Maeda to give himself enough time to let his own kagune unfurl from his lower back. Yūgiri's words have attracted the ghoul's attention and he flies towards the _tsukumogami_ muttering something about food.

Shūichi has no idea what will happen if a ghoul tries to eat the spirit of a sword, but he doesn't want to find out either. With a shout to call Maeda's attention back to himself, Shūichi lunges.

The bikaku kagune that he ended up inheriting from his mother is tough enough to shatter the ukaku shards like glass, but he knows his own weaknesses and soon finds that his limbs are all cut up. His kagune is strong, but Maeda is so fast that he can barely swing around fast enough to hit him.

Their fight is like a dance for quite some time. Shūichi won't die anytime soon from these wounds, but he is steadily growing frustrated - so frustrated that he almost slices a tree clean in half after getting thrown against it.

But Shūichi did not ask for Yūgiri's assistance just to make Tsukasa feel assured that he would have back up. Yūgiri is more than just an old, pretty piece of art to be admired in the storeroom on the night of a full moon. And Shūichi finds out exactly why Tsukasa insists on cleaning that blade so much, why he makes sure Yūgiri eats even though as a sword food is unnecessary, and why Yūgiri was named ' _night cutter'_ by a god from long ago.

Neither Shūichi nor Maeda realize what has happened until they see the pieces of the other ghoul's kagune falling to the ground, not until Maeda coughs up blood and gurgles in pain. Yūgiri has slipped behind him and drawn his sword so quickly and silently that their enhanced senses never had a chance of noticing. The blade is slick with blood.

Shūichi can't help the grin that crosses his face like a madman. He swings his kagune around and lets it pierce Maeda through from the front.

"You...thief…" Maeda gasps.

"I didn't do it to steal your food," Shūichi grumbles, stepping away and watching as the ghoul slides to the ground, gasping and trying in vain to send a few shards flying at Yūgiri, who merely deflects them with his sword. "Your hunting methods have been causing a disturbance. Two of your old buddies asked me to take care of it. You can thank them once you get to the afterlife."

Maeda is a ghoul in his mid thirties and it shows in his deep voice tinged with bitterness and humorless mirth. "Traitors, all of you!"

Those are his last words. He looks as if he wants to say more, but he dies with hatred and tears in his eyes as he stares up at the pointed end of Yūgiri's sword. The blade is directed at the center of his head and the sleeves of Yūgiri's _yukata_ move gently in the warm breeze. He knows that to most ghouls, Yūgiri smells perfectly human - Shūichi can only tell he is not because he has known him long enough to be able to parse apart the tang of metal from the heady, succulent scent of human on him.

Shūichi closes his eyes and turns away, watching the blood drip from his own wounds, as Yūgiri drives the sword through the ghoul's skull and the man breathes his last. When Yūgiri joins him to stand in front of the rotting corpse that has been poorly buried at the base of a tree, Shūichi cannot help the shiver that travels down his spine. He retracts his kagune and stares down at the corpse of the dead human. The woman's half eaten arms have been wrapped across her chest in the mockery of a funeral pose.

When he looks up, he sees that Yūgiri's eyes are solid grey and flat, empty, like the surface of his blade. He easily forgets that this young man standing next to him isn't human, after all. He is a weapon made to kill, just like Shūichi's kagune.

"Don't you want to eat?" Yūgiri asks.

Shūichi shakes his head even though he crouches down to take a bite anyways. He can't pass up a free meal, but it feels weird having the _tsukumogami_ looming over him, waiting for him to finish. As he eats his fill, Shūichi sits back to observe the two corpses in the vicinity.

"I don't think he really wanted to kill all these people," Shūichi says. But at the moment, he has no explanation to offer as to why he thinks so. And, he finds, his companion doesn't seem to care.

"I don't really understand," Yūgiri admits. "Wanting or not wanting to kill."

"Of course you don't," Shūichi says as he stands and wipes his mouth. It tastes stale, but something is better than nothing.

* * *

"Congratulations! You made it back alive!" Kurō exclaims when they return to the teahouse. It is past noon by now and the customers inside peer at them curiously. Kurō reaches out to grab Shūichi for a suffocating hug, but he manages to avoid the man just in time to see his older brother step outside.

Kurō, like his name implies, is dark all over. His hair is nearly black and his eyes are an eerie brown. His skin is much darker in comparison to his older brother, Hakuō's, which is pale as snow. They are twins who stand on either side of an invisible divide. Black and white, energetic and stoic.

Hakuō smiles, pushing strands of white hair behind one ear. "Tsukasa-sama was worried about you."

"I told him everything would be fine!" Shūichi protests with no real weight to his words. Something flutters in his chest at that moment and it isn't the adrenaline running through his veins anymore.

"Hey, it's thanks to me that you didn't get cut into pieces!" Yūgiri snaps, his voice a sharp whistle that makes Kurō hurry over and slap a hand over his mouth to stop him from attracting more attention. It doesn't help that he still has his main body strapped to his side where everyone can see it. "Mmph!"

The door slides open with a clatter and everyone hears light laughter emerge from the teahouse. "Welcome home! I'm glad you came...back...safe…"

Tsukasa has evidently noticed the torn clothes and blood seeping out of half closed wounds. His clear hazel eyes go wide before he is shoving Shūichi and urging him to walk around the teahouse so that they can enter through the back door. No matter how much he wants to dig his heels into the dirt, Shūichi knows that he cannot stay out in the open like this for long, so he lets himself be pushed and dragged.

"I'm fine!" he tries to protest.

"Shut up. See, I let you go off on your own and look at what happens!"

"It's already healing!" Granted, he heals slower than a rinkaku type, but after eating his body feels much better already. "Besides, what are you doing home? I thought you had negotiations to mediate?"

Tsukasa doesn't say anything, just opens the backdoor and practically throws Shūichi on the floor of the kitchen with a huff. The others, except for Kurō who has gone back to the storefront, trail in behind them. As the human disappears into the bathroom, Hakuō walks over to Shūichi with a shine in his light brown eyes. For just a moment, those eyes shine gold. Shūichi knows that it isn't a trick of the light.

"Tsukasa-sama was worried about you," Hakuō repeats what he said earlier.

Shūichi frowns. "Wait, does that mean he could have gone with me!?"

Tsukasa returns with a curious look on his face, like a confused dog with its head tilted to the side. Shūichi scowls because he has no clue if Tsukasa really has no idea what has just been said or if he is just pretending not to have heard. Humans are hard to understand.

"Shūichi, come here. Let me bandage you up. You can't walk around like that," Tsukasa says sternly. Stern is a strange look on the young man, who to Shūichi looks so frail that he sometimes thinks if he touches Tsukasa too hard, he'll break.

"I don't need you to coddle me like you do Yūgiri," Shūichi grumbles, though he allows Tsukasa to tug his shirt over his head and start to clean the blood off with a damp towel.

Yūgiri growls low in his throat. At least he doesn't sound like he wants to cut Shūichi's head off. Hakuō redirects the _tsukumogami_ towards the main room, telling him to go put his sword away.

It's just Shūichi and Tsukasa in the kitchen now.

"So how was it? Your target," Tsukasa says, careful to withhold any emotion from his voice. "Was he the fearsome monster the newspapers make him out to be?"

Shūichi shakes his head as he watches Tsukasa wrap the bandages around his shoulder and arm. It's uncomfortable, but he lets the human do whatever he wants.

"I don't think so. He was just...desperate."

"Desperation is no excuse for murder," Tsukasa says lightly, as if he has forgotten that Shūichi is a ghoul.

Shūichi is quiet. He waits for the rest, knowing that Tsukasa isn't so forgetful nor so prejudiced.

"Tell me why you think he did it."

"Does it matter? He's dead," Shūichi mumbles. Tsukasa leans down until they can look each other in the eyes. Shūichi didn't realize that his head had fallen until he opened them and saw the floor.

"I want to know more about your kind. I can only help those I understand, you know," Tsukasa says. "I know about _ayakashi_ and humans the most, naturally. But even then, until I met Kusaka I never tried to understand them - either of them. I thought my job was just to eliminate the troublemakers. Understanding others wasn't part of the job description. But I was wrong."

Shūichi gives a tiny nod. He looks into Tsukasa's eyes and sees a young man whose gentle mask is so perfectly moulded that he might as well be a ghoul. But he has seen the _other_ Tsukasa before and so he nods and tells him.

"We ghouls have no choice but to become murderers to live. Some care about that, others don't, but regardless of how you feel, you need to eat. And hunting - the thrill of it - is something you can never forget once you have experienced it just once. It consumes you, makes you feel like life is worth living. At least, for the moment." Shūichi swallows, trying to make sure that his voice never wavers. "But that feeling fades for some. And then you start to feel guilty - and sometimes that guilt consumes you."

Tsukasa continues his ministrations, but he is listening, eyes only leaving Shūichi's in order to make sure he's wrapping the bandages well.

"So maybe this guy was one of those types. He had to eat so he hunted, but he kept on going because he couldn't stop. And when he did stop, he hoarded them so he wouldn't have to hunt again for months. But it's not like this stops the guilt. People are still dead because of him, regardless of when they get killed. So it just continued like this, over and over again."

"...How did you figure this out?" Tsukasa says because the means are sometimes just as important as the goal.

Shūichi thinks back to the corpse in the woods, to the half eaten woman. "His victim was posed. Her hands were positioned as if she was going to her funeral."

Tsukasa hums in consideration. "Kurō wants to throw you a party to celebrate. Any requests?"

It isn't that Tsukasa is ignoring him. Shūichi knows that he will file this information away and someday, he may actually have to use it. Shūichi laughs.

"You mean about food? How the heck would you accomplish that?"

"No, no, no. Is there anywhere you want to go? We hardly get out anymore. We'll be busy preparing for the Gozan Fire Festival double time after this, so we might as well enjoy it."

Shūichi smiles.


	2. The Second Story: Spirit of Arashiyama

**The Second Story: The Spirit of Arashiyama**

 _Whilst in the middle of preparations for the upcoming Gozan Festival, the teahouse receives information about a number of attacks on pedestrians on the outskirts of the city. However, once they arrive, Tsukasa insists that they leave this matter alone…_

* * *

Tsukasa smiles innocently at Shūichi from the doorway of the main room where he is laying flat on the floor, too hot to move. The sun has hardly lifted off the horizon and it's already so humid that Shūichi can feel the sweat slide off his brow even though he hasn't moved for the past twenty minutes. Tsukasa is hardly unaffected, but he still has a small bounce to his step as he walks and stands over Shūichi.

"...What."

That smile widens a fraction. "Make me breakfast."

"...Why?"

"I'm hungry," Tsukasa states as if this is the most obvious reason he would be asking such a ridiculous thing of a ghoul. Sometimes Shūichi can't help but wonder if Tsukasa really does forget that he's a ghoul.

"I can't make human food," Shūichi argues with a muffled grunt. He still doesn't want to move from the floor since the bamboo mats make it slightly cooler. "Go tell one of the birdbrains to make something."

This time, Tsukasa begins to whine. It sounds a bit odd because of his deep voice, but at least it doesn't hurt his ears like a girl's whining would. "Hakuō and Kurō are opening the shop early and told me to make it myself."

"And why don't you make it yourself?"

"I don't feel like it."

Shūichi can say no and walk out that door, leaving Tsukasa with no choice but to prepare something quick. Or Shūichi can say no, walk out the door, and Tsukasa will skip breakfast altogether and get dizzy and nearly pass out this afternoon.

"You're so stubborn!" Shūichi growls as he leaps to his feet almost faster than Tsukasa can see. The human claps his hands together and utters a little sound of victory as he follows Shūichi to the kitchen.

The kitchen is a terrifying place to Shūichi. It's constantly filled with the scents of food cooking on the stove that make him want to vomit. Today it seems that Hakuō just started boiling the _dango_ and a pot of red bean paste sits in the back, but nothing smells terrible yet.

It's not like Shūichi has never cooked before. He just doesn't cook human food. He heads for the refrigerator and turns to Tsukasa with a scowl.

"What do you want?"

"Eggs and toast!"

Well, how hard can this 'eggs and toast' be? Shūichi takes out the ingredients and a pan, trying to remember what 'eggs and toast' looks like.

"I want them over-easy!"

Shūichi swings around, brandishing the chopsticks he was about to use to beat the eggs - he remembers seeing Kurō do that once. Tsukasa backs away when he points them directly at the human's face with a seething growl.

"No! You don't get to decide! Stop complaining and sit down like a good boy!"

Tsukasa laughs with mock-nervousness. "Alright, alright. It's more fun to eat it that way though."

Shūichi frowns because he has no idea what an 'over-easy' is supposed to be. It's probably something he should know, if he's going to keep living with this idiot who doesn't feel like making his own food half the time. "How is it more fun?"

"Well, you can cut open the yolk and all of it comes gushing out and then you scoop it up with the toast!" Tsukasa beams. He literally looks like a huge, small child. He's taken a seat at the rickety folding chair in the corner of the kitchen. Hakuō sits there plucking the ends of edamame beans sometimes in the early morning or evening, when everyone else is sleeping or watching TV or otherwise bothering each other and not him.

"And humans call us ghouls crazy?" Shūichi mumbles with the hint of a smile tugging at his lips. "You like to play with your food, too! I'll have you know that the human equivalent tastes good too."

"Ew! But it's not like the eggs are baby chicks!" Tsukasa cries out imploringly. "Unless you mean...ugh that's gross too…!"

Shūichi looks down at the innocent egg in his hand. He cracks one into a bowl, eyes widening a little when he sees that a few shells have fallen inside. That's okay, right? He quickly cracks one more into the bowl and begins clumsily beating it.

He appreciates that Tsukasa only flinches when he casually mentions eating humans off-hand. But still, it makes his throat close up and his chest ache a bit to know that Tsukasa still finds it so repulsive. Shūichi puts up with his disgusting meals of fish and beef and chicken all the time, after all.

But it's still different, he supposes, glancing at the human out of the corner of his eye. It's not like Tsukasa eats ghouls. And yet he doesn't protest when Shūichi manhandles him or when he offhandedly mentions that Tsukasa probably tastes delicious. In fact, he even lets Shūichi sleep next to him.

Shūichi pours the egg mixture into the hot pan slowly. Maybe he should stop joking about those things. For a little while, at least.

"So…" Tsukasa drawls as they stand in the kitchen listening to the water for the _dango_ gently boil and the eggs frying on the pan. "We have a new request…"

"A new request!? So quick? When did this happen?" Shūichi says. He almost knocks the pan over as he swings around to listen. Tsukasa stifles a laugh behind the square sleeve of his _yukata_. He doesn't move his mouth away as he speaks, so his voice is muffled.

"When I was at Mount Hiei yesterday with Hakuō and Kurō, one of the _ayakashi_ came up to me and asked that I take a look at the area around Arashiyama. There have been a few incidents around there in the last few weeks, if you remember? No one has been seriously hurt yet so it's probably not the work of a ghoul, but it's starting to scare the tourists away. Of course, the CCG can't find anything since there's nothing for them to find."

"I see," Shūichi nods. That district is located on the western outskirts of the city. He has never been there himself, but he already knows what Tsukasa is about to say.

"So...I was thinking of making a day trip over there to check it out! We'll have to leave someone behind to mind the shop, but what do you think? By the way, I smell something burning."

"It's- what!?" Shūichi spins around and is hit in the face by a wall of heat and a stench so strong he almost vomits over the pan. Seeing this, Tsukasa runs over and waves his hands uselessly over Shūichi's pounding head, trying to make him move over before he ruins the stove. "Urgh!"

Tsukasa manages to push him to the far wall before he returns to the stove to turn off the flame and move the half burnt eggs onto a plate. Shūichi watches him move about the kitchen with jerky motions like he hasn't cooked before, either. His nausea fades a little now that he's away from the source, but he ends up crawling into the next room for some fresh air.

Tsukasa returns sometime later with his burnt breakfast. It has cooled down by now and looks even worse than before, but at least it doesn't smell. Shūichi's eyes widen as Tsukasa lifts his chopsticks and starts eating.

"You're still eating that? Isn't it gross?"

"Food's food," Tsukasa hums. "You bear with it all the time for us when we go out to eat at festivals and such. Besides, it's not burnt beyond repair. Nothing a little salt won't fix. So, so, what do you say about Arashiyama? We could go for a boat ride on the river...or go see the monkeys! Why not take a look?"

"Seeing as it's a request, I don't really have a choice, do I..."

* * *

Shūichi, Tsukasa, and Kurō are the ones who end up making the trip to Arashiyama by way of the Sagano Line. Yūgiri refuses to go on account of the copious amounts of water-based activities that Tsukasa wants to participate in, and Hakuō is the one homebound most of the time because he always gives a sour face whenever someone mentions going out.

"I've been wondering…" Shūichi muses in a low voice as they walk through the bamboo groves, the long stalks of green towering above their heads. There isn't much of a breeze today, so the entire grove stands silent. It is somehow eerier than the whistle of the wind through the stalks, the sound that Yūgiri makes when he hums.

"Yes?" Tsukasa prompts him. Shūichi flushes and looks back up at the bamboo, not having realized that he never finished his sentence.

He takes a quick look around them, but the closest pedestrians are a family of tourists a few meters away. "Why is it that both you and your brother go to restaurants or festivals with us sometimes, Kurō? I thought one of you always had to stay at home to 'watch' the house."

Kurō turns to him and blinks. The brown of his eyes are even darker in the shadev and his hair seems to meld seamlessly into the shadows. The smile that he flashes under the mottled lighting is wide, showing just a sliver of teeth.

"The house will be protected so long as at least one of us remains on the property," he says. As usual, his voice is clear and carries a hint of a vague, meaningless tune. It fades like bird calls into the bamboo grove. "When we are gone, the teahouse is simply a teahouse again. But without Tsukasa there, it's a fairly safe place. Nothing more than the weak _ayakashi_ should have cause to wander inside."

"Oh," Shūichi utters, glancing at the human man. He whistles into the humid air somewhat breathlessly, but it does not sound like metal slicing through air and does not succeed in making Shūichi shiver. "I see. Is there a reason we have to leave your brother behind today?"

Shūichi still doesn't understand all of these matters having to do with the _ayakashi_ and _yōkai_ that haunt this world, invisible to ghouls and humans alike.

" _Why is it that I can't normally see them?" Shūichi asked once, long ago, to Hakuō. It was even before he met Tsukasa that he asked the white haired man this question. "I'm not human."_

 _Hakuō merely cast a slim, rare smile in his direction and continued to draw swirling Chinese characters on a slip of paper. He was making wards, which they sold for extra profit. "Perhaps you have more in common with human beings than you think."_

It still confuses him to this day. He can see the twins and Yūgiri perfectly, but when they go searching for _ayakashi_ on a clear day like today, his eyes perceive nothing more than trees and the sky and a river that stretches beyond the horizon. Meanwhile, Tsukasa's eyes are always moving from place to place, clearly staring at something meaningful. His lips slide into a smile when he is unaware of it, as well.

Just like now. Tsukasa is looking up at the treetops when Kurō answers.

"Hakuō just doesn't like to leave the house much. He was the last to fly the nest when were little, too," Kurō laughs and his voice is normal again, less like a creature of the mountains and more like a young man in his twenties, bored with walking through the bamboo groves with his male friends. "Come on, let's go see the monkeys!"

"Oh! We get to see the Togetsukyo Bridge! I haven't seen it since I was little!" Tsukasa's eyes suddenly return to this side of the world as he darts forward, grabbing Shūichi with his right hand and Kurō with his left. He walks backwards as he drags them, although it really isn't necessary seeing as Kurō is just as excited.

Shūichi smiles and shrugs out of the loose grip the human has on his wrist. "Okay, okay! Let's go!"

They end up stopping by Tenryuji Temple before crossing the bridge, thanks to Tsukasa who has a friend he wants to visit. Shūichi simply sits back and watches the human dart through the crowd. He might not be able to see the _ayakashi_ very well without help, but there is always more than one thing that can hurt a frail human like Tsukasa in a crowd like this one.

Kurō lingers by his side. He watches the birds flit between the lush greenery around them with the amusement of a child.

"Don't you want to go?" Kurō asks.

"Why? He's a big boy," Shūichi retorts. "What about you? Don't you want to see the temple? I thought you liked that sort of stuff."

Kurō smiles thinly, his smile almost like his older brother's, except it is set against a darker face. Once again, it is the smile of something inhuman, making Shūichi shudder and turn away. "Not temples. We prefer shrines."

Shūichi doesn't know the difference, but he doesn't ask either. He has never been religious - he has only ever been to a shrine or temple or whatever they are called because Tsukasa and Kusaka before him were going.

A long time ago he had probably asked his parents why they never went when all the other children got to go for Children's Day. He doesn't think he ever got an answer. Of course now he knows, not that it matters.

"So why is he going there?" Shūichi asks to distract himself from the thought of his dead parents.

"Probably to ask about the _ayakashi_. I think his family knows the people who work here."

At the mention of Tsukasa's family, both young men fall silent. They listen to the people on the paths chatter, but it is mere white noise to them. When Tsukasa returns, they are wearing twin smiles of false cheer.

"Suwa-san told me that there have been a lot of thefts near the Okochi Sanso Villa back where the bamboo groves are," Tsukasa says. "Suwa-san set some wards up a while ago, but something broke through them recently."

Kurō's eyes widen as they lift themselves from the ground, dusting stray blades of grass and dirt off their pants. "Broke as in…?"

"It wasn't the work of a curious or ignorant person. An _ayakashi_ broke through the barrier surrounding that area."

They return to the bamboo groves and suddenly, the dense forest around them and the gentle whistle of a breeze blowing through the stalks is less peaceful as it is eerie. Okochi Sanso Villa is made up of various gardens and buildings, and is an area that once belonged to a famous actor from the Meiji Era, or so Tsukasa tells him. They pay to get inside and are walking down the road when Tsukasa steps off the path.

"Tsukasa! The woman at the front gate said we can't go into any of the buildings!" Shūichi hisses. But this doesn't stop the human from slipping around the back of one aforementioned building, Kurō following right behind him with a bounce to his step. "Kurō, don't encourage him! Get back here you two!"

"Shush, Shūichi. I'm not going into the building. Look at this _ofuda_ ," Tsukasa says, moving aside to point a slender finger at the door frame. A rectangular strip of white cloth has been pasted to the wood. Calligraphy of some mysterious Chinese characters stains the cloth, but Shūichi cannot read it. The alarming part, he assumes, is that it has been cut in half and is charred around the edges like someone took a lighter to it. The edges dangle in the wind.

Shūichi's entire body shudders against the sudden gust of air that has swept between the buildings. With a flinch, he tries to shove Kurō's hair out of his line of vision. The dark strands stab him in his sensitive eyes and he winces as he pulls away, sputtering, wondering…

...wondering why such a strong wind is blowing at the height of the summer. The air itself is still saturated with humidity, he realizes after he stops moving for a second. Shūichi tosses his head from side-to-side rapidly, heartrate climbing as he desperately tries to see that which cannot be seen by normal eyes. All he sees are leafy trees that cast long, demonic shadows across the ground.

"Shūichi," Kurō calls out softly. When he turns around, he realizes that Kurō has been calling his name this entire time. His brow is drawn slightly in annoyance, but he shakes it off and waves Shūichi over to his and Tsukasa's side again. "There's nothing there."

"But that wind…!"

"Shūichi, there is nothing there. Trust me." It is Tsukasa who speaks this time, his voice calm and airy. That voice swims in Shūichi's mind as the human reaches out to hold Shūichi's head between his hands, cradling it gently as if a ghoul can shatter from a human's touch. It's the opposite, Shūichi wants to argue, but he is too dizzy to form coherent words.

Dizzy…? Yes, the world before him is blurred and wavers like a mirage on a hot summer's day. Tsukasa's face fades in and out of focus, but he can hear that voice through the buzzing in his head and it makes him smile or grin - he can't tell which one.

"Shūichi, please lay down," Tsukasa says in a whisper. Or maybe it isn't a whisper at all. He can hear the bird calls in the distance loud and clear, but Tsukasa seems intangible. It is only the feeling of those hands that pulse with life that keeps him grounded. Before he knows it, he is staring at the blue sky. "Shūichi, listen to me. The _ayakashi_ …"

Shūichi needs to apologize to Tsukasa for always joking about eating humans. He knows that Tsukasa isn't some naive little boy who just thinks ghouls are monsters from stories meant to scare children. Because Shūichi can remember a time when Tsukasa was not so calm and unaffected. He swallowed his horror and grief in order to fulfill his job. And ultimately, he left the violent world of ghouls and those who hunt them behind him.

Tsukasa smiles more often these days. But why isn't he smiling now?

"Tsukasa," Shūichi slurs. "Smile? Come on, smile~"

"Okay, this isn't working. Kurō, hit him," he hears Tsukasa say. An outraged squawk comes from some unseen place. "Just do it. We won't be able to snap him out of it otherwise."

Tsukasa fades from view, but just as Shūichi is about to formulate a coherent question, he sees a narrow object come flying at his head. Though he watches it descent in slow motion, he can't react fast enough to stop it, and a bright starburst of pain blossoms between his eyes as he hisses and claws at the dirt, wanting to bring his kagune out but not.

Because Tsukasa is here, he reminds himself through the bright spots of pain that throb in his head. Humans are so frail. If he so much as touches Tsukasa with his kagune, will he split the man's skin open like the belly of a fish?

The pain shoots further into his skull and seems to last for minutes without stop before it finally begins to fade and Shūichi opens his eyes - really opens them - to see Tsukasa sigh in relief and Kurō clasping his hands together in forgiveness. He eyes the tall staff propped against Kurō's chest and shoulder, the top rungs jingling slightly in the breeze. And Shūichi realizes that it is no longer a strong and bitingly cold breeze, either.

Warmth wraps itself around Shūichi's face.

"What...happened...?"

"It seems that our little _ayakashi_ friend is more powerful than we thought," Tsukasa says with a tired smile. His pale skin is smooth, but Shūichi can almost imagine the worry lines he'll have by the time he's thirty. "It tried to bewitch you. If it wasn't for that barrier Kurō set up, we might not have been so lucky in snapping you out of it. A possessed human can only do so much damage, but a possessed ghoul…"

Shūichi's eyes widen. "Me, possessed?" he echoes, voice climbing. "I didn't even see anything."

"There wasn't anything to see," Tsukasa says, climbing to his feet with a groan. "Come, I want to run a few more tests before we try to antagonize this thing into coming out."

Shūichi moves to get up as well, groaning when he realizes that the staff Kurō hit him with was not an ordinary monk's staff. A dull, burning pain spreads through his head and he cradles it tenderly. He supposes that he is too accustomed to being invulnerable to almost all weapons except kagune and the Doves' suitcases.

"Why did you have to hit so hard…" he groans.

"Sorry! I had no choice since you wouldn't come out of it! I didn't want you to accidentally hurt Tsukasa-sama!" Kurō implores with a quiet whine as they start walking back to the path. The golden staff fades, seemingly into dust, before Shūichi's eyes. Within seconds there is nothing left except the dull ache in his skull to prove that it ever existed.

With a small sigh, Shūichi waves his apology away. All he wonders as they make their way back to the bamboo grove is whether or not the other two saw that which is invisible to him - was an _ayakashi_ looming over his back, tying him in its puppet strings as his companions looked on with dread?

No matter how much he lingers on it, Shūichi will never come to a certain answer. But he doesn't ask Kurō or Tsukasa about it, either.

A warm breeze blows through the bamboo grove. Kurō's long hair, tied into a high ponytail, gently wraps itself around his arms and torso, but he must be used to the feeling because he doesn't even attempt to brush it away. It is slightly cooler beneath the shade, even if the air is moist as ever, and Shūichi takes a moment to close his eyes and make sure his breathing evens out as they walk.

How is he supposed to protect Tsukasa from a creature he can't see? Can his kagune even touch it, if he was to bring it out?

It takes a long time to pass through the forest for the third time. The path is fairly empty of tourists and eventually it is only the three of them walking beneath the jade green bamboo stalks. Shūichi looks to the sky and sees the stalks sway back and forth like giant blades of grass on a nice day in spring.

This time, he only notices that something is wrong when Tsukasa stops in the middle of the path, breathing hard, eyes flicking between the bamboo on either side of them as if he expects a monster to jump out from them. Shūichi and Kurō both are immediately on guard, but there seems to be nothing there.

"We've been walking for far too long," Tsukasa says into the wind. He reaches one hand into the folds of his blue and grey striped _yukata_ and takes a folded paper fan out. He opens it to fan himself, looking far more out of breath than either Shūichi or Kurō.

He continues to wave the fan back and forth. The tiny light pink flowers printed across the paper seem to dance, mimicking the fall of the cherry blossoms in the spring.

"Kurō, give him an _omamori_ ," Tsukasa says. Kurō pulls one of the small protection charms from his pocket. It is immediately recognizable as one of the green tea colored ones that Hakuō painstakingly sews while outside in the garden on nice afternoons. Kurō shoves it into Shūichi's hand with a wink.

"Is this another…"

"Yes," Tsukasa confirms, looking about. It is strange that he doesn't move, but the poor human does look like he's about to collapse. Shūichi approaches him with deliberately slow steps like one would walk towards a skittish animal. There is nothing wrong besides the sweat rolling down his neck and the occasional shiver that runs through his shoulders from the breeze passing through the grove.

"Tsukasa?"

"I know who you are. Come on out." Tsukasa suddenly snaps the fan closed and a whirl of wind and leaves, so sharp Shūichi fears that they might cut Tsukasa's face, jump into the air.

Kurō steps in front of both the human and the ghoul, his stance wide but firm.

"Is there something-"

A scream splits the air in two. Shūichi flinches, the dull pain from before returning full force. When the sound fades, he realizes that it isn't a human scream. It tapers off into something feral, a howl that sounds like the cackle of a fox.

"She's here," Kurō hisses. He points one clawed finger (clawed?) at the bamboo grove to the right. Shūichi tenses and thinks that perhaps he should take his kagune out. It doesn't seem like anyone else is around here.

However, something begins to come into focus. Shūichi's eyes widen as he realizes that he is staring at the form of a woman wreathed in hair so red it seems like the flames of autumn. Around her hips and waist are three long tails - the tails of a fox. At first Shūichi growls and tries to shove Tsukasa and his frail human body far behind him, because she looks like a ghoul with a rinkaku kagune and Shūichi finally has an enemy he can see to fight.

Tsukasa, however, places one of his hands at the small of Shūichi's back, making him tremble at the unexpectedly light touch. For just a moment, his blood had run hot and he almost drew his own kagune out - if he hadn't stopped in time, he would have sliced Tsukasa's palm clean open.

"Tsukasa! Stay back there!" Shūichi snaps, trying to shake the unpleasant feeling off.

"No," the human says firmly, eyes fixed on the form of that woman in the groves. She stands tall and silent, but her eyes are piercing gold. "She isn't a ghoul. Take a good whiff."

Shūichi does so and blinks in confusion.

"There are many _ayakashi_ that excel at bewitching unsuspecting people with illusions. Won't you please leave my poor friend alone?" Tsukasa asks the woman, who gives him a wide grin. "Neither his soul nor his body will taste very good to you, I imagine."

"I would never eat one of those," the woman calls out, her voice so faint he can hardly hear it. "But it's easy to play with those like him."

"Why do you want to talk to us?" Kurō interjects, straightening his back and relaxing his posture. His legs are still braced somewhat, ready to lunge, but he seems comfortable with giving her the benefit of the doubt. "That is what you want, right?"

"I want that which has been stolen from me," the woman says. "That which human beings have stolen from me. If you can do that, I will leave this place and its people alone. If you cannot, I will take what is due to me."

This makes no sense to Shūichi and apparently to Kurō as well. However, Tsukasa closes his eyes for a moment and thinks.

"I cannot fulfill your request," he says at last, opening his eyes and staring straight at the woman, whose tails curl idly. Then he turns to Shūichi and Kurō and says something that Shūichi has never heard come from his mouth before. "Forget this one. We're going home."

"Wait a minute, what!"

"Tsukasa-sama!? Do you know what you're saying?"

"Oh," chuckles the woman, her pointed incisors showing through a thin, pale smile. "That little onmyōji knows. Are you sure about this? Your little friends don't seem to be in agreement. I'm kind, so I'll give you a second chance: can you fulfill my request?"

Shūichi expects Tsukasa to think about it again. Despite how he looks, Tsukasa is remarkably introspective and never makes a decision as important as this one without consulting with everyone else - but this time he doesn't.

"I cannot," Tsukasa says. "What you ask of me is impossible."

"Even so, we can't just leave her be, Tsukasa!" Kurō hisses, as if doing so will mean that the woman can't hear him. She chuckles from afar, voice melting into the wind. "She'll become a vengeful spirit!"

"Vengeful spirit…? Anyone mind telling me what's going on?" Shūichi finally snaps, raising his voice. "What's her request!?"

Tsukasa closes his eyes and sighs quietly. Pain pulls at his expression as he stands behind two people who will gladly toss their lives aside for his small, insignificant existence. Shūichi will not move until he has an answer. Kurō refuses to leave until they finish the business they came here for.

"Shūichi," Tsukasa says. "Kusaka once told you that the price for stealing another's life is very high. It is a price that accumulates interest and can only be easily bought out by the most depraved of individuals. Both you and I know this well."

Shūichi flinches at the mention of Kusaka, the previous owner of the teahouse.

 _"Do you want to live? If you want to live, you must promise me something."_

 _"What, 'please don't kill anymore'? Don't be ridiculous, human!"_

 _"I never ask the impossible."_

The fox woman begins to move towards them, each of her tails flickering as she walks. They look like flames licking at the stalks of bamboo.

"She wants revenge for her children who have died," Tsukasa finally clarifies.

"How...how do you know that?"

Tsukasa smiles and taps his own chest, right where his heart is located. "Unfortunately, we humans are somewhat weak when it comes to the subconsciousness. It's easy for thoughts to get through."

"So you did see that," the fox spirit says through a mouth full of fangs that glisten. "Won't you fulfill my request? To kill the family who killed mine?"

"No," Tsukasa says. "Go do it yourself."

Kurō whirls around, lips pulled into a snarl, his eyes a definitive molten gold. The tips of his hair sharpen and flatten, rustle in the breeze, and the claws of his fingers begin to look more like the hooked talons of his true form.

"Tsukasa!" Kurō snaps, voice shrill. "You're going to let her curse an entire family for something one of their ancestors did three hundred years ago?"

Shūichi doesn't think that Kurō will turn those talons against Tsukasa, but places himself between the human and the young man morphing into something far from human just in case.

"...If you let her have her revenge, won't she turn into a vengeful spirit?" Shūichi concludes slowly. He may not have ever gone to school, but he isn't stupid. It's easy to piece together now.

Tsukasa smiles, but it is a rather empty smile that lacks humor, cruelty, or joy. "If that time ever comes, then we will return here to complete the job. But for today, we are leaving. If you aren't happy with that decision, then do something about it yourself."

But they both know that Kurō will do nothing, not because he believes Tsukasa is correct, but because an ayakashi has no right to pass judgement upon another ayakashi.

Not Kurō, anyways.

The fox woman stops walking. She is nearly to the edge of the grove, but she merely stands tall amidst the bamboo and folds her hands in front of her with a small smile. Almost as if she's grateful.

"I did want to have a taste of you," she chuckles, eyeing Tsukasa with a worryingly familiar predatory smile. "But it looks like your little guard dogs would sooner bite my face off. Are you really okay with not exorcising me?"

Tsukasa merely nods. "You're free to go today, Okitsune-sama. I think we can still see the cormorant fishing if we leave now. There's no point in coming all the way to Arashiyama if we don't see the cormorant fishing."

"Wait, doesn't that event take place at night?" Shūichi says, puzzled.

"It is night," the fox spirit laughs as a heavy wind blows across the path again. The air around them darkens and soon they find themselves in the middle of the bamboo grove, staring up at the moon. "Have fun, you three…"

* * *

"...What just happened?"

Kurō is silent throughout the entire trip to the riverside. His appearance as returned to that of a young man, but Shūichi still watches him carefully. He knows that he will never live long enough to ever really understand either of the twins, but he is just realizing how much he doesn't know about them, about the world of spirits, and about the spirits themselves.

Just like when Tsukasa wrapped his wounds after he fought that ghoul Maeda, Shūichi wonders if he should learn more. Tsukasa patiently listened to him talk about what it's like being a ghoul - complete with Shūichi cursing the CCG and spitting on the kitchen floor with disgust.

They watch the cormorants tethered to the fishing boats bobbing in the river. It's a strange event that Shūichi hasn't taken his eyes off of for the past twenty minutes. He can almost ignore the tension rolling off Kurō in waves.

"Ah, I can't believe we wasted our whole day in that bamboo grove!" Tsukasa exclaims with a slight whine in his tone as he stretches his arms above his head. "I wanted to go to the monkey park, too…"

Shūichi's eyes are transfixed on the lanterns that light the fishing boats up, so he doesn't notice that something is wrong until Kurō yanks his shirt.

When he turns around, he sees a crowd of humans on the path behind them. Their voices steadily climb, wavering and trembling with worry, anxiety, and finally, a shriek of terror.

Shūichi starts slightly, sniffing the air and realizing that he smells the slightly salty, but savory scent of human flesh.

A woman's scream tapers into relentless sobbing and someone cries, "Call an ambulance!"

"...I was hoping she would choose to go down a different path," Tsukasa says quietly beside him. His head is bowed and his right hand holds the fan from before loosely.

Kurō stands, but he doesn't confront Tsukasa. He snatches the fan out of the human's hands and makes a run for it, following the river away from the considerable crowd growing in the streets.

After a moment, Tsukasa sighs and goes to follow Kurō.

"Come, Shūichi. We have an exorcism to perform."

Shūichi nods even though he knows Tsukasa can't see it with his poor eyesight. "...Tsukasa?"

"I hoped she would choose something different, after three hundred years of waiting to get her revenge," Tsukasa mutters. "But in the end she couldn't forgive the ones who skinned her children alive for their pelts. It's just like you told me ghoul are like, right? Well, it's not like humans are any different..."

He says it very softly, but there aren't any around to hear their words.

Shūichi can only bite his tongue and hum in agreement. How many countless ghouls have been orphaned because of the Doves? How many have lost children and lovers and friends? He's certainly lost people to them - to humans almost as frail and puny as Tsukasa, who cuts himself on paper and bruises if Shūichi holds him too tight.

They catch up to Kurō in a remote part of the riverside, where the boats used for daytime sightseeing bob gently in the water.

Kurō snaps the fan open and waves it once, inviting a cool gust of wind that swoops down from the sky. Tsukasa hurries to his side, sweeping aside his sleeves as he reaches for the fan.

"I'll say the lines, you lure her here," Tsukasa says quickly.

And then, Tsukasa begins to chant. The words are alien to Shūichi, who lingers in the background utterly useless. An exorcism isn't something that a ghoul is capable of, Tsukasa tells him, and Shūichi watches with a body so tense he wants to scream, but he can't move from this spot once the ritual has started.

There aren't any physical markings on the ground, but Tsukasa swings the fan in the air as if he is dancing, and Kurō emerges from the darkness that has begun to seep through the space between the water and the shoreline. A ball of fire hovers behind him.

That ball of fire glows like a miniature sun for two seconds before it dims and expands, shifting, sharpening, and it splits violently into three pieces that fly in different directions. Those pieces, he realizes, are taking the form of a beast with four legs, a snout emerging from the light.

Kurō runs to stand in front of Tsukasa, but doesn't take out his golden staff. He stands there until all three flaming foxes are flying straight for them. Shūichi grips his left hand hard, willing himself not to move.

 _"Ghouls can be affected by an exorcism. If you are ever in the vicinity while we do one, you must not move, you hear me? Or there might not be enough left of you for us to salvage."_

Shūichi can't hear anything but the words, " _...oh vengeful spirit..._ " before he realizes that the fan glows a calming white. That light seems to absorb the harshness of the red spirit foxes until there is nothing left but a few tendrils lingering in the air.

Tsukasa snaps the fan shut, slicing the remaining strands, which dissipate into the air. And with it, the howl of a scream that sounds awfully human echoes in the mountains across the river.

Tsukasa collapses as soon as the ritual is complete, dropping the fan into the grass.

"Tsukasa!" Shūichi runs over as fast as possible for a ghoul, which means that he makes it before Tsukasa's torso hits the ground. He catches the human in his arms, careful not to hold him too tightly as he shoves the hair from Tsukasa's eyes. "Are you okay?"

He sees Tsukasa's pale lips smile. A voice answers him, weak and hoarse, but alive. "I'm just tired. Shūichi, go home?"

His voice is as small as his life in Shūichi's hands, but Shūichi cradles that life gently between arms that can snap a human's neck in two. He doesn't know where Kurō disappeared to, only that he is following somewhere in the darkness as they make their way back to the teahouse.

* * *

Shūichi carries Tsukasa inside the house through the back door, which leads into the kitchen filled with the scents of warm tea and cloying desserts. Yūgiri is standing at the stove, scooping green round _dango_ from a tall pot when Shūichi walks past him with Tsukasa, limp in his arms and a complete dead weight.

"Welcome ho…What happened!?" Yūgiri cries out, his hand jerking in the process. The net that he was using to scoop the dumplings out of the pot falls, splashing hot water across his hand. However, Yūgiri doesn't even wince.

Tsukasa has enough presence of mind to lean his head back and mutter with slurred words, "Yūgiri, run your hand under cold water. I'm fine. Just sleepy."

Shūichi's arms don't hurt even though he's carried a full grown man clear across the city, but he utters an impatient grunt as Yūgiri scurries over with worried eyes. His hands grip Shūichi's upper arm to prevent him from escaping so tightly that it actually makes the ghoul cringe.

"Yū-chan, he's fine. The exorcism made him tired." Kurō's head emerges from the back door as well, his dark hair swinging back and forth as he walks inside with an oddly wide grin. "Let Shūichi put him to bed. We ate dinner already so it's fine if he just goes straight to sleep."

"He's already halfway there," Shūichi murmurs as Yūgiri finally releases him. He escapes the kitchen before they are held up any longer.

The living quarters attached to the teahouse are awfully small, even for a place in a major city such as this one. It takes some maneuvering to work his way through the main room, which has fabric, an upturned sewing basket, and calligraphy brushes and ink scattered everywhere, to the narrow staircase in the hallway.

Tsukasa's head rests against his chest, but the human doesn't make a sound as he carries him up the stairs and into the second bedroom. He doesn't even utter more than a small "...night…" when Shūichi kicks open the futon and lays him down on the poofy bedding.

He can leave now, if he wants. It's been a few days since he last ate, so he could go for a quick hunt or scavenge around for the rest of the night, but for now Shūichi stays by Tsukasa's side. He flops on his belly and props his head up between his hands, watching as the human curls up and tucks his arms close to his body, as if he's cold on a warm night such as this one.

Shūichi allows a small smile to tug at the edges of his lips.

Before he leaves, he opens the windows in the room. There is nothing, not even a breeze.

* * *

I'm not 100% satisfied with this one. It dragged on and on because there was never meant to be much action in this chapter in the first place.

So, to recap: The fox spirit's request was for Tsukasa to kill the humans responsible for the death of her children. Although the original culprits are long dead, the descendants still bear a portion of their ancestors' "sin" so to speak. Tsukasa refuses this request for obvious reasons, but he angers Kurō because he refuses to exorcise the spirit at first as well. Tsukasa, just as Shūichi says in the first chapter, favors ayakashi. So he gives her one chance to go back on her plan for revenge. However, she isn't able to get over her grudge and attacks one person from that family at fault for her children's deaths. Well, it's up to interpretation as to whether or not she killed him. Afterwards, Tsukasa and Kurō exorcise her by sealing her away into the fan. So she's not actually dead, per se...


End file.
